Harlem Teen Killed After Argument

A 15-year-old Manhattan boy who had survived a shooting just seven months ago was shot and killed on a the sidewalk outside the Peaceful Valley community garden in East Harlem late Tuesday night.

Family members said that Juan Otero was heading to a bodega across the street from their 117th Street home when he was shot three times in his right arm around 9:36 p.m. Tuesday night. A law enforcement official said that one of the bullets traveled through his right arm and into his stomach. He was pronounced dead at Metropolitan Hospital Center.

A security camera on a building across the street from the teen’s home shows three men converging on a spot out of the camera’s view where Otero was shot. Footage from the camera shows one person approach Otero on the sidewalk, followed a few seconds later by two others walking down East 117th Street who then duck between parked cars. Less than five seconds later, all three are seen running away.

One witness told police he heard arguing followed by gunshots. Two spent shell casings fired from a semi-automatic weapon were recovered on the sidewalk, the official said.

The law enforcement official said that  Otero was a “known associate” of a gang called Air It Out, or AIO for short. Relatives told detectives that he had been involved in several recent gang-related altercations near the same spot where he was killed. Detectives are also investigating if there is a link between the non-fatal shooting of one of the young man’s friends on June 5 at 103rd Street and Tuesday night’s murder.

The official said Otero had been arrested in the past for resisting arrest and robbery in separate incidents but that the cases were sealed because he was a juvenile. The young man had been shot in the right hand on November 21 at the Carver Houses at 1330 Park Avenue, the official said.

Racquel Monserrate, Otero’s 53-year-old grandmother, said she never saw Juan wearing gang colors and knew nothing about his alleged gang involvement. “Sometimes kids are into things and you don’t know what they’re into,” she said.

To her, Juan was a typical teenager — a 10th grader at the Manhattan School for Career Development who loved to bowl, ride his bicycle and go to the movies. He was also devoted to his little sister, who everyone calls Ya Ya.

“It’s sad that you can’t even step out of your home to go to a store,” Monserrate said. “A life was taken too early.”

Otero’s mother, Jessica Montilla, was weeping Wednesday as she scrambled to make arrangements to bury her son, whom she described as “beautiful, unselfish, funny and smart.” She said the reality of having her son murdered hadn’t fully set in yet.

“I’m thinking he’s going to come walking up the block,” Montilla said.